I generally don’t agree with the common refrain that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering players need to run more removal in their Commander decks. Part of the beauty of the format is that you’re able to 💝make decks that do just about anything you want, with little regard for whether that idea is actually good. “Run more removal” is a bit like “re♋ading the card explains the card”, in that it’s a bad-faith comeback to criticisms of certain cards, and serves to hinder the inherent creativity of the format.

However, I’m going to toss all that out the window and tell you that you need to be running more land removal. In the last two sets, lands have become more and more of a problem, and you can slot just a few cards into your deck that can shut down players who’d otherwise go completely unchec✃ked.

What Is The Problem With Land Removal?

Armageddon

Land removal has a bad reputation, especially in Commander. One of the first pieces of etiquette new Commander players learn is t🔜hat mass land removal is bad, and you shouldn’t do it unless your table knows it could b♏e possible before it begins to play.

And, to an extent, that’s true𓄧. Blowing up everybody’s lands all at once is a powerful play that completely grinds the game to a halt. That’s why the bracket system introduced late last year specified that mass land destruction can only be played in higher-tier decks, meaning you’ll likely never encounter an Armageddon at a hyper-casual table.

For something to be mass ಞland destruction, it needs to do two things:

  • Destroy more than one land.
  • Destroy them at the same time.

This means cards like 🐼Armageddon, Fall of the Thran, Ravages of War, and Decree of Annihilation, which simply get rid of all lands. But it also means less definitive removal, like Orcish Settlers, From the Ashes, or Wildfire too, which don’t destroy all lands, but certainly a whole lot of them.

Planetary Annihilation

Weirdly, the Edge of Eternities preconstructed Commander deck includes Planetary Annihilation, which destroys all but six lands for each player, which I’d class as mass land destruction. Precons are considered to be at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:bracket two, while 𓂃mass land destruction is a four, so there is a degree of flexibility on where the effect can be used.

Unfortunately, the distaste for mass land destruction has some carryover to generally interacting with lands in any way. For some particularly whiny players, d𝕴estroying a land or turning off its abilities is the biggest slap in the face possible, and they’ll throw all threat assessment aside to punish you for it.

Ignore them, though, because targeted land removal is likely going to become an increasingly important piece of interaction, and every deck should have a way or two of doing it. It doesn’t need to crowd out what your deck does, an🌃d can keep land players from getting away with murder just because hitting them is considered in bad taste.

Lands Have Been A Big Problem Recently

Between the mono-red aggro decks and the Omniscience combos (rest in peace, my sweet prince…), 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:landfall decks have been slowly gaining💫 🍷popularity, thanks to a few choice cards.

Final Fantasy’s Tifa Lockheart turned landfall decks into a lightning-fast combo build, with the goal being to throw land after land down to double Tifa’s power and trample over your defences. And who could forget Mossbor༺n Hydra, which has been tearing up Standard with the similar ability of doublin🌟g its +1/+1 counters?

Landfall is a very snowball strategy, as the more lands you play, the bigger your creatures get, and the more resources you have to play spells that let you play even more lands. Land destruction is already important to stop these kinds of decks running away with the game, as there’s simply n꧋o way of keeping up with their ramp otherwis๊e.

Edge Of Eternities Is Introducing Lands You’ll Want To Kill

Uthros, Titanic Godcore eng

Some of the biggest, splashiest cards to come out of the upcoming 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Edge of Eternities have been the new Planet lands. These make use of the station mechanic to allow you to slowly put charge counters on them before t🎀hey get ridiculously strong effects later in💮 the game.

The big argument in support of land removal has always been land-heavy decks. Nobody bats an eyelid at destroying an artifact deck’s artifacts or an enchantment deckไ’s enchantments. But touching lands is too often considered off-limits, and I feel like with Edge of Eternities this problem is only going to become more pronounced.

Take Uthros, Titanic Godcore. At 12 or more charge counters, it gives you a blue mana for every artifact you control. Or Adagia, which can make token copies of an💜y artifacts or enchantments you control. These are game-winning effects, and being on lands makes them much harder to deal with than if they were on any other kind🌸 of permanent.

Seedship Impact

Edge of Eternities is also introducing Lander tokens, a new artifact token that can be sacrificed to put a basic land into play tapped. It’s cheap to produce, with plenty of ways to double the tokens ꦺor their triggers, and it’s a repeatable Rampant Growth-type effect. Not having any way to blast away the lands they fetch is going to let any deck based around it ramp faster and harder than ever before🌞.

Mightform Harmonizer

And don’t sleep on Migh✤tform Harmonizer, a non-legendary creature that i🦹s going to fit right alongside Tifa and Mossborn Hydra as yet another power-doubling landfall trigger. Anybody allowed to sit with their lands going unanswered is either going to kill you with one or two massive value generators, or simply drown you out under the flood of mana they’re ramping out.

A Little Land Destruction, As A Treat

Magic the Gathering Ghost Quarter from Innistrad by Peter Mohrbacher. An abandoned cart in a gothic Victorian setting. A full moon shines on the ghosts that occupy the town.
Ghost Quarter from Innistrad by Peter Mohrbacher, from Magic the Gathering

Whether someone’s just got a pesky Reliquary Tower, or something more powerful like a Cabal Coffers or Uthros, having a few ways to destroy lands and prevent ramp is mo🌱re crucial than ever.

Fortunately, there are cards that can be run in every deck that provide at least so𒉰mewhat of an answe🤡r.

Strip Mine, Ghost Quarter, And Ark Of Blight

These can all be used to destroy a target land. But, more specifically, they can target any land, including basics. How you use these defines how much of a threat you are at the table: using them to slow down a ramping player is reasonable, but using them to lock a player out of the game might⛎ be a bit more contentious.

Demolition Field, Dust Bowl, Field Of Ruin, Wasteland Et Al.

These ones can only target nonbasic lands, which makes them less of a kill-on-sight for ౠy♋our opponents.

They can target most of the problematic lands, like Uthros or Reliquary Tower, but can’t really slow down an opponent ramping. This is especially true for Demolition Field and Field of Ruin, which will ཧthen give your opponent another landfall trigger when they go find a basic and put it into play.

Ultima, Origin Of Oblivion

Ultima, Origin of Oblivion

Ultima is an interesting card in that it doesn’t actually destroy lands; it simply turns them off. Any land with a blight counter on it won’t be able to tap for any colour and loses all its💖 other abilities.

It’s an expensive and easily removed card, but with a bit of work, it can shut d🅰own more lands than anything else here. It also serves as a ramp for you by doubling lands you control that tap for colourless mana, which is very handy in the right deck.

Magic The Gathering Cover

Your Rating

Franchise
🍒 🐈 Magic: The Gathering
Original Release Date
Augus⛄t 5, 1993
Player Count
2+
Age Recommendation
13+
Length per Game
Variable